When coding source statements, you need to be aware of what
characters are acceptable to the assembler, and how the assembler
interprets them. The following numbers and characters are
accepted by the assembler:
o The letters of the alphabet, A to Z, uppercase and lowercase.
By default, the assembler converts all lowercase letters
to uppercase. This means it considers lowercase letters
equivalent to uppercase letters.
The assembler can operate in a case-sensitive mode. In case-
sensitive mode, the assembler does not convert lowercase
letters to uppercase letters. On OpenVMS and OpenVMS Alpha
systems, you can select case-sensitive mode from the command
line with the /NAMES=AS_IS qualifier.
o The digits 0 to 9.
o The special characters listed in the Special Characters Table
which follows.
Table 2 Special Characters Used in MACRO-64 Statements
Character
CharactName Function
_ Underscore Character in symbol names.
$ Dollar Character in symbol names.
sign
. Period Character in symbol names, current location
counter, and decimal point.
: Colon Local label terminator.
:: Double Global label terminator.
colon
sign keyword argument terminator.
equal
sign
# Number Literal value indicator.
sign
@ At sign Arithmetic shift operator.
; Semicolon Comment field indicator.
+ Plus Unary plus operator and arithmetic addition
sign operator.
- Minus Unary minus operator, arithmetic subtraction
sign or operator, and line continuation indicator.
hyphen
* Asterisk Arithmetic multiplication operator.
/ Slash Arithmetic division operator.
& Ampersand Logical AND operator.
! ExclamationLogical inclusive OR operator.
point
\ Backslash Logical exclusive OR and numeric conversion
indicator in macro arguments.
^ Circumflex Unary operators and macro argument
delimiter.
( ) ParenthesesDisplacement and register field delimiter in
an instruction operand. Argument delimiter
to a lexical operator.
<> Angle Argument or expression grouping delimiters.
brackets
? Question Created local label indicator in macro
mark arguments.
' Apostrophe Macro argument concatenation indicator.
" Double Quoted literal delimiter.
quote
% Percent Delimits the beginning of a lexical
sign operator.
(space)Space or Separates source statement fields. Spaces
tab within expressions are otherwise ignored.
(tab)
, Comma Separates symbolic arguments within the
operand field. Multiple expressions in the
operand field must be separated by commas.